Discussions of new films, books, television shows, and media indirectly related to magic and magicians. For example, there may be a book on mnemonics or theatrical technique we should know or at least know about.

Columbia Pictures has acquired the rights for a new motion picture version of "The Shadow" (created by Walter Gibson). Sam Raimi (director of the Spiderman movies, among other things) is set to produce. At the moment, he is not likely to direct.

The previous film incarnation of The Shadow, which starred Alec Baldwin, flopped at the box office.

I liked the Baldwin version as well. Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Highlander II, and a number of music videos for folks like Billy Joel, Queen, Duran Duran, Queen) directed it. The script was written by David Koepp, who co-wrote Jurassic Park and the first Mission Impossible movie and wrote the screenplay for the first Spiderman. Looks like he's also working on the next Indiana Jones sequel.

I'm definitely in for whatever Raimi does with this. It appears as if this is something he's wanted to work on for a while. His 1990 movie Darkman was quite obviously influenced by The Shadow and, according to Wikipedia, was borne out of his inability to secure the rights for either The Shadow or Batman. Now that he has control over The Shadow, it'll be interesting to see where it goes (a lot may end up depending on who writes and directs it).

Some more info: The script is being written by Siavash Farahani. He doesn't seem to have any major credits that I can see -- IMDB lists him as only having directed one movie (Ingenue, in 1999).

In addition, IGN has this to say about Raimi directing:

[The Hollywood Reporter] claims Raimi is not attached to direct at this time but IGN has been informed otherwise by sources. THR also did not have any further comment on IGN's report that the film might also include appearances by other Street & Smith heroes so that remains only a rumor at this time.

It's worth noting that it was IGN that first broke the news about this project almost a week ago, so there may be some truth to their report that Raimi will direct.